


down to my skin and bone.

by katarama



Series: leave this blue neighborhood. [4]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, College, Depression, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Loneliness, M/M, Past Drug Addiction, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 23:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10604445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: Jack doesn’t think any picture could capture the way the view through the window of his dorm room looks cold and empty, and the way that Jack knows he only sees it that way because it’s sinking in that he's now in a place where no one knows his name.Considering his name, that should be a good thing.  That should be a really, really good thing.  But it also feels gut-wrenchingly lonely, terrifying in a way he hasn’t really felt since he almost lost everyone and everything.





	

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  **If you're new to this series, start[HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10586022).**

**August 2011**

 

 

Jack sits down on his brand new bed, the one that he and his family had to de-loft so Jack wouldn’t hit his head on the ceiling every time he sat up.  The twin extra long size is long enough for Jack if he turns sideways and sleeps diagonally across the mattress, which is an angle that still mostly feels weird, though he knows he’ll get used to it.  The bed isn’t a big deal.  It’s rare that the bed he’s sleeping on is what keeps him awake at night.  Unless the bed is truly rock hard, he can sleep on it, and based on how long his mother spent comparing the cushiness of mattress pads at the store, Jack is confident it will be fine.

“If you need anything at all, let us know,” his mother had said when she hugged him goodbye.  She clung a little longer than usual before giving Jack’s father his turn.  Jack had told them that he’d be fine, but that he would call them later, anyway.

“It’s okay to not be fine, Jack,” his dad said gently.  “It’s okay for things not to be fine.  Just don’t be afraid to talk to us.”

Jack can understand their nervousness, to some degree.  He knows that dropping a kid off at college can be nervewracking for most parents, if the cheesy teen movies have anything right.  His mother spouted every single factoid about Samwell she could remember while she was giving Jack the tour around campus, as if his college experience depended on it, even though Jack already knew a lot of it.  He has been there with her before for alum events.  

But for parents, they have actually been relatively calm throughout this process.  Jack thinks it helps that he isn’t 18 and living away from home for the first time.  It probably _doesn’t_  help that when he _was_  18 and living away from home for the first time, his parents had to drive away from the rehabilitation center where he was staying until he started to sort out his drug and alcohol problems.  But he would like to think that’s just a testament to the amount of trust they have in him, that they aren’t panicking about this.  At least, not in front of him.  

He would like to give himself credit for that, because he’s been working hard for the past two years to be honest and open with them, so they have a reason to trust him being off on his own.  In all reality, he thinks it’s just because that’s how they are as parents and as people.

They aren’t leaving him without a safety net, though.  They chose Samwell partly for the resources the school offers, and they took the time to fly down early with Jack and make sure he met with and was comfortable with the new therapist he had been referred to for his time at Samwell.  

They’re gone now, though, heading back to the hotel so they can fly out back to Montreal in the morning.  

The room feels empty and quiet, the only noise the faint sound of people laughing and playing guitar outside.  Jack can hear the opening bars of some 90s song that he vaguely recognizes from when he used to go to hockey parties, but doesn’t know the name of.  He can’t see where the music is coming from, so he figures it’s probably from the Lake Quad side; the street outside Jack’s window is empty, the pavement only lit by the glow of the streetlights.  

It’s still a nice view.  They’re far enough out from the city to see the stars, though Jack can’t really make them out from the direction his dorm room window faces.  Jack _can_  see the way the river water practically shimmers as the waves reflect light, and his fingers want to find where he packed his brand new camera and see if he can capture the way it looks.

He would want to capture how the moment feels, but Jack doesn’t think he is good enough at photography to do that.  He doesn’t know how one conveys the strange feeling of being in a new place that still doesn’t fit quite right, that jarring sensation of living in a new place that doesn’t yet feel like home.  He doesn’t think any picture could capture the way everything looks cold and empty, and the way that Jack knows he only sees it that way because it’s sinking in that he's now in a place where no one knows his name.

Considering his name, that should be a good thing.  That should be a really, really good thing.  But it also feels gut-wrenchingly lonely, terrifying in a way he hasn’t really felt since he almost lost everyone and everything.  

Jack has a roommate, a broad-shouldered kid with a strong New England accent.  He’s a local, it seems, though he went to high school somewhere in Massachusetts that’s north of Boston; he only stopped by briefly earlier that day to check in, get his orientation packet, and unload his car onto his side of the room.  He said he was going to a party with one of his high school friends, mumbled something about things being shitty, and took off, shouting over his shoulder that he wouldn’t be back that night.  

Jack thinks he’ll be an okay roommate.  They talked a little bit before school started up; he got in contact with Jack over Facebook as soon as room assignments were announced to tell Jack not to worry about bringing a mini-fridge or microwave.  He told Jack that he’s on the rowing team and will have a lot of early mornings, which makes Jack optimistic that they, at the very least, won’t really have conflicting schedules.  

Still, Jack can’t see himself being close to him.  His roommate clearly has other friends around from before Samwell that he’s sticking with, and Jack can’t help but be painfully aware of how young his roommate is.  Jack knows he only has a few years on the guy, but he feels the difference acutely.  It only works to make him more anxious about everything.  He knows where that couple of years went, and he knows that that makes him boring and old, and not even in a fun ‘will buy us booze’ kind of way.  

Jack doesn’t know what he’s going to do if he has to spend the next four years of his life feeling even more isolated than his head makes him feel on his own.  Jack is better at being alone with his thoughts than he was Before, but only just barely.  And when he’s really alone, he always feels his traitorous brain going back there.  He knows that seeking treatment was one of the best things that he could’ve possibly done, regardless of what the newscasters say.  He knows that not starting treatment would’ve probably killed him.  He knows now that he needed therapy more than he could’ve possibly imagined, because his brain is so much of a giant clusterfuck that it is going to take him the rest of his life to work with it.  And he knows that it doesn’t feel like working with it actually makes things easier on a day-to-day basis, because having to deal with problems instead of just running from them is _hard_.

Sometimes, it leaves him wondering what would have happened if he were just a little bit more careful.  Wondering about if he had just mustered up the energy to go over to Kent’s that night instead, if he had just called his mom downstairs to talk about it or had breathed through the way his skin crawled and his breath came hard and his head grew fuzzier, if he hadn’t decided that downing too much booze and too many pills would be easier, an escape…

Then maybe there would have been things that he could’ve kept.  He wouldn’t have spent time in rehab, only getting back on the ice at first to work with his peewee team.  Maybe he wouldn’t have spent two years with a self-imposed block on ESPN, constantly forcing himself to stream documentaries and How It’s Made videos online instead of flipping the TV through sports channels.  He would’ve gone to the NHL and dealt with shit like he always did, rising to the mounting pressure by keeping his head down and skating through all of it.

More importantly, maybe there would have been people he could’ve kept.

Maybe he wouldn’t be sitting on a dorm room bed and staring at his new alarm clock as the numbers change to 10:00 PM, terrified that no one will want him around.  Maybe he wouldn’t have had to face his mother’s pale face and his father’s tired eyes when he woke up in the hospital room.  Maybe there would’ve been a way to keep his loved ones close, even though the fog in his brain that got heavier as the draft approached, the fog that masqueraded as rationality and common sense, told him it was only a matter of time before he was halfway across the country, hearing a familiar New York accent on the phone telling him that he was too much work to keep up with.  That he’d found someone better on his new team, the team that Jack was no longer on.

Maybe that same fog wouldn’t be lingering in his head now, telling him that he’s only going to have his team, and that this hockey team isn’t going to be any different from the rest of them.  Telling him that he’s going to have to constantly fight to stay away from the pills and the booze, and that he’s only going to connect with anyone while he’s on the ice.  And that there is not going to be a Kent Parson here to swoop in and try to keep him from fixating, from spending all his time in the rink and in his classes, and from shutting everyone else out out of necessity.

But Jack knows better now than he did when he was 18.  Jack knows, at least objectively, that that train of thought isn’t rational or healthy.  Jack knows that he’s where he needs to be, and he knows in his gut that Samwell will be good for him, even if he’s scared.  He knows Samwell isn’t the NHL, isn’t going first in the draft or getting a Calder.  He knows that Samwell isn’t even in one of the top NCAA hockey conferences.  He knows that Samwell is officially being left behind, putting off a career for another four years.  If he winds up with a career at all, at the end of this.  He knows this isn’t a dream where he gets to play hockey and also be himself, because there is no hockey in which he can also be him, can be a boy with anxiety and depression, can be a boy struggling to keep his head above water.  Can be a boy who loves boys.

But he also knows (or at least keeps trying to convince himself) that though it may take time, he’ll find his place on the team eventually.  As much as he disagreed with his therapist about his ability to connect with other people, he has to admit that he wasn’t a bad alternate captain, and that he worked well with his team, and that they kinda grew to accept him.  He knows that he’s met the other Samwell hockey players from his year back during signing season, and that they seem loud but not mean.  

And he knows that there’s one now-sophomore, the goalie, who left an impression on Jack, pulling him off to the side, away from the group, and telling him with the most complete and unnerving sincerity that Samwell is a place where Jack would find his people.  “Or most of them, at least.  Another one should’ve showed your junior year but won’t.  Do you watch baking vlogs?”  

Jack didn’t know what to do with it at the time, but he’s clinging to it now.  The idea that maybe he’ll make a place for himself here.  That maybe Samwell can be a new start in more than one way, and that maybe there will be fewer nights awake at 2:30 AM, trapped in his head and looking to reach out and grab for anything that will quiet his brain.  That maybe there will be fewer nights where he scrolls through his phone contacts and hovers over the number he no longer uses but has never deleted, torn between craving the feeling of someone’s arms wrapped around him, skin against skin, words that ached and wanted pressed into Jack’s ear, and the feeling of jealousy that burns his gut and makes his mouth taste sour with all the bitter things Jack has never let himself say.

Jack hopes that Samwell will be a new start.  A new Jack.  One that hasn’t forgotten the lessons he’s learned and the hard work he’s put in, but that will take safe chances and reach out to others.  One that will become a part of the team and that will become a better hockey player for it.  One who looks forward to meeting the guys and practicing with them the next day, instead of dreading it and fearing it.

Right now, sitting in his empty dorm room, listening to probably stoned guitar playing and debating going to bed early to stop feeling so alone, Jack is too anxious to feel optimistic.

But that first morning when he wakes up and goes to Faber and gears up in the locker rooms for the first time, he thinks that maybe he’ll feel braver.

At least, that’s what he hopes, and hope is all he has left at this point.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://polyamorousparson.tumblr.com)


End file.
